


a little for myself

by futureboy



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: 7 days to die, Friendship, Gen, No Romance, Trans Female Character, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-26 18:20:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18722419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/futureboy/pseuds/futureboy
Summary: 7DTD AU. Jack's forgotten what having someone around who understand you feels like, until the gang pick up a straggler in some infested hotel.Written for the first Trans Ragehappies fic drive! Tagged for zombie gruesomeness.





	a little for myself

**Author's Note:**

> [RPF disclaimer: Written according to guidelines set by RT employees (to the best of my knowledge). This is a fictional series of events using characters inspired by real people.]
> 
> Title from ‘You Can’t Have All of Me’ by Reel Big Fish.

They don’t talk about it.

It’s like saying ‘sorry’ in absolute seriousness. They just don’t.

What would be the point? It’s not like there’s doctors left, right and centre to come and help them out. Besides, none of them have been friends long enough for it to ever come up in conversation.

(Except for Geoff, of course. But he hardly counts for it, because he’d never bring it up to her anyway.)

Sometimes Jack wonders if other people thought about the apocalypse the way she’d done as a kid - in terms of reinvention, survival as usual, with a dash of appealing anonymity. It seems unlikely, given the sheer amount of apocalypse shows where gangs go out and murder each other, but she likes to think there’s other transgender folk still out there.

And she also doesn’t. It’s horrible. Jack would feel good knowing she was the only person struggling in the wastelands, because no-one else should have to go through this shit _ever_.

It’s a constant cycle of up and down. Sometimes she has to shave every day, hands shaking with weariness in front of the bathroom mirror, and other weeks she’s relentless in her work because she’s got Energy again. Those weeks are the best. They’re the ones when the others raid the hospitals, and Geoff limps back into the base to push pills or gels into her hands that the others won’t comment on.

Jack thinks maybe they don’t want to upset her.

She’s not upset. She’s pissed off and tired with the whole thing.

 

* * *

 

And then Fiona happens to them.

 

* * *

 

“Oh, god! This is finally it, isn’t it? We’re all gonna die.”

“Shh,” Jack says sharply, and turns back to the wall.

Hopefully no-one - _nothing_ \- heard them.

“Kid’s skin and bones,” Michael says, in a low voice, “we can’t just _leave_ her, Jack.”

Jack blanches. “I know.”

A wall of windows. Crumbling concrete pillars. Boarded up doors. Night’s falling over the hotel and they’re trapped like fuckin’ rats, waiting for death to come charging up the stairs on all fours.

“You know the layout of this place?” she asks the kid.

A shake of the head. “Not super well. But I guess there’s utility rooms in back that we might be able to bunker up in, I don’t know.”

That would do. “Bet there’s ladders to the roof in those. Access panels, stuff like that, you find ‘em in the utility rooms,” she grins, “so let’s go. Turn off your flashlights and move slowly, it’s nine thirty and we don’t wanna attract any unwanted attention. Yeah?”

“What about Ryan?” Michael says.

“He’s probably on the top floors still,” Jack replies, “you know him, he always survives.”

The three of them edge around the doorframe as quietly as possible. There are zombies propped up against the railings in the corridor, slack-jawed and idle, but no-one manages to nudge them into life. Thank Christ… Jack’s beginning to get twitchy just thinking about it. A hand seizing an ankle, a mandible sinking into flesh. Ugh.

_Thwtch._

“Jesus, Fiona!” Michael stage-whispers, “you scared the shit outta me!”

“Shh!” says Jack, because it scared the shit outta her, too, but holy shit, they gotta be careful. The arrow had whipped up her hair as it flew by to meet its mark, and the zombie had toppled easily with a loud thud.

“Just blocking up the stairs,” Fiona whispers back. She puts her bow back over her shoulder.

“Good shot, whoever-you-are. But _fuck_... Don’t do that again.”

She doesn’t, which to be honest is a lot gentler on Jack’s nerves, and they manage to barricade themselves into the utility room. There is a ladder, so Michael heads up to the roof to check for strays.

Fiona and Jack remain in the room.

Walls need barricading.

“Do you think that some of them are trans?” Fiona asks, as they push laundry machines up against the wooden structures and drywall separating them from certain death.

Jack’s head jerks up. “What?”

Great. Just _great_. Now she’s nervous about zombies, hyperaware of her voice and her face, wondering if Geoff and the guys hear croaking undead gurgles every time she speaks--

“They used to be people,” Fiona says, in a small voice.

Oh.

“Like, they were real and living, and now they’re not... But they were still people once, you know? I think about that all the time.”

She sounds like a child, betrayed at the way that life isn’t fair, and that the universe is cruel without logic. Violent in unlinkable random acts. She’s not saying _you’re like them_ \- she was trying to say that _some of them used to be like you_. Vivacious and gritty and strong and transgender.

Watch reads _10:01_. Clock’s running.

“Hey… Fiona.”

“Yeah?”

Jack reloads her handgun magazine against her knee. “We’re not gonna die tonight,” she grins, as a nasty scrambling sound echoes distantly against the concrete.

The ladder bangs with a metallic chime.

“Hey, Jack! Michael and I cleared out the roof. Still a few vultures, though. Unrelated, do we have any honey?”

Fiona shrieks. The bow waves wildly in the air for an alarming few seconds:

“Hey, Ryan,” Jack says flatly.

“When did we get a new friend? And why is she screaming?”

“Because she’s stupid and we’re gonna save each other,” says Jack, taking the safety off, and suddenly spotting a few crumpled dollar bills in the bottom of a laundry barrel.

Sweet. Maybe that was a good sign.

 

* * *

 

Having Fiona around is weirdly nice.

Jack’s never thought about it before. In the early days, there were more girls to hang around with, but the last several months has just been Geoff, Ryan, Gavin, Michael, and Jeremy for company, and whilst they do their best, there’s some things they just don’t get. Like Jeremy, awkwardly offering her sanitary towels that one time, or Gavin beaming with one (1) bottle of tea tree shampoo and one (1) missing tooth. Jack doesn’t need special treatment for being a woman, and whilst the clueless cisgendered offerings are sweet and laughable, she kinda just wants someone to be on the same side of the fence as her.

Fiona calls it ‘Girls’ Club!’ when they both head into the basement to dig deeper, squeaky with excitement. And she’s cocky in a way that isn’t a so-to-speak bigger dick competition - Jack can quite happily spend nights in their birds’ nest, taking turns over potshots towards the lawn, knowing that they’re the best they can be without measuring themselves against anybody else.

“Us ladies gotta stick close, you know?” Fiona will say, nudging her side.

Jack always nudges back harder. That girl is a lil’ shit.

 

* * *

 

_Bang, bang bang--_

“Fuck!” Jeremy bellows, “they’re coming in through the ceiling, too! I think they’re getting damaged by the fall, though--”

“Fuck off!” yells Jack, and shotguns a bloated former cop right in the face. Green bile flies everywhere.

Something grabs her hair with a greasy hand from behind.

Horrified, Jack twists in its grip - gunshots reverberate around the ward as she makes rotten eye contact with a decomposing nurse, blackening scrubs stained from botched meals and time.

She wonders if it sees her or just _smells_ her.

Jack can’t breathe.

 

_Thunk._

 

Blinking, she feels thick blood spattering against the side of her face. It’s _cold_. Refocusing the depth of her vision reveals a blurry stone axe, embedded firmly in the nurse’s skull like the bone is firewood.

Fiona’s on the other end of the handle. Her whole self is revealed with the fall of the body; the hand slithers free from Jack’s hair.

“So where the fuck have you been?” Jeremy demands.

“Hospital’s got stuff in ‘em, dude, I was looting.”

“Alone?!” Jack thunders, “are you _broken_ , Fiona? You could have been killed! Or _worse--_ ”

“But I wasn’t, was I? I can look after myself, guys, I did before I met you--”

“Shut the fuck up,” Jack says sharply, “and don’t say a fuckin’ word when we bike our ways outta here. You’re our goddamn _friend_ , we’re not just gonna let you wander off for a lunch date with death. Fuck.”

Her ribs are heaving by the time she’s done. She’s aching with rage and weariness. And probably withdrawal, because her stash ran out on the same day Fiona decided to go off on a jolly fuckin’ lone wolf adventure. The combined stress hasn’t been kind to her sleep schedule.

Fiona’s bottom lip wobbles.

She steps over the bodies to grab her backpack, saved from harm on top of a row of lockers. After she reaches up to grab it, she stands, motionless, in the corner of the room - there’s a sound that’s suspiciously similar to a sniffle.

Jeremy makes eye contact with Jack: _it’s fine, it’ll blow over, let’s go_.

Jack approaches.

“I was in trouble,” she admits quietly, but she doesn’t turn to look Jack in the eye.

“So was I. Good job with the nurse.”

There’s the swishy friction of vinyl as she rummages in the compartment of her backpack - Fiona turns, pills rattling against plastic, and holds up a peace offering.

 _Premarin_ , says the label. _28 TABLETS X 3. CONJUGATED ESTROGEN TABLETS._

“Thanks,” says Fiona.

Jack pulls her in for a hug and mutters the same into her hair. “I’d offer you my helmet for the way back,” she says, “but I don’t think you need it, seeing as you’re such a bonehead.”

“Fuck you.”

“You too. Let Jeremy lead the way outside.”

They’re never gonna be people who say ‘sorry’ to each other. But then again, ‘thanks’ is usually just as good.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on tumblr - come say hi!
> 
> Kudoses, commentses, and subs are always welcomed. Thanks for reading ♥


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